OPEN LETTER  A farewell message to the citizens of Michigan

It’s an understatement to say that for the people of Michigan, it’s been an incredibly challenging decade.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm

It’s an understatement to say that for the people of Michigan, it’s been an incredibly challenging decade.

To address the sweeping economic challenge, my administration focused on three priorities over these past eight years: diversifying our economy, educating our citizens and protecting vulnerable people as we transition from an old Michigan economy to a new one. In the process we’ve laid the foundation for a new Michigan.

We researched our strengths. To create jobs and diversify our economy, we targeted six emerging sectors for growth: clean energy, advanced manufacturing, life sciences, homeland security and defense, tourism and the film industry.

Since 2003, in these six sectors and others, our economic efforts have resulted in more than $57 billion in private investment, nearly 4,000 economic development projects and 653,000 jobs created or retained through the next few years.

Take the advanced battery industry as one example. We’ve built from the ground up an entire advanced battery “ecosystem” in Michigan. In just over a year, 19 domestic and international battery companies have come to the state and are projected to create 63,000 jobs, making Michigan the nation’s leader in the electric vehicle.

As governor I vowed to “go anywhere and do anything” to bring new investment and jobs to Michigan. I went on 12 overseas investment missions to 10 different nations, with 50 companies announcing nearly $2 billion in new investment in Michigan and more than 20,000 new or retained jobs.

To ensure our citizens can compete in a global economy, we raised standards in every grade, and created a new college prep curriculum that all high school students now take. Math and reading test scores have risen every year since adopting the new high standards, dropout rates are declining and we have record college enrollment.

And we completely restructured workforce training through our No Worker Left Behind program, with more than 147,000 adults enrolled for retraining. Community college enrollment has jumped 35 percent.

During this time of challenge and change, it’s been important to protect Michigan families who are feeling the impact. I’m proud that despite the tough economy, no Michigan citizen was cut off from Medicaid. And Michigan is still second among all states in children with health insurance.

Michigan has made solid progress over these past eight years. But don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what independent evaluators have said.

• The National Association of State Budget Officers found that during this decade Michigan shrunk spending and cut a greater percentage from government than any other state in the country.
• Michigan was named one of the best-managed states in the country in 2006 and 2008 by Governing Magazine and the Pew Center on the States.
• Since 2004, according to the Center for Digital Government, Michigan has been either first or second among all states for using technology to streamline government and serve citizens.
• The Tax Foundation found that Michigan’s business climate rose from 27th in 2003 to 17th today.
• Site Selection magazine, which annually ranks the business attraction efforts of all states, found that over the past two years, Michigan is one of the top three states for attracting new business expansions.
• And the nonpartisan Senate Fiscal Agency reported that Michigan’s business and individual tax burden dropped more than any other state’s in this decade.

Finally, I’m proud that despite a legislature controlled in part or whole by the opposite party, we accomplished 80 percent of the initiatives proposed in my eight State of the State addresses.

The signs are pointing in the right direction. Our unemployment rate this year has dropped three times faster than the national rate. This is the first year since 2000 that Michigan has seen private sector job growth. Health care is now our largest industry. Economists are predicting more job growth for 2011.

We have work to do. But Michigan, everything’s going to be all right.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your governor these past eight years. It has been an honor.